Hello, I’d like to pay for that with my cell phone.

by J. Money on Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Oooh can you imagine that? Whipping out your cellie to pay for a chocolate bar or a movie ticket! Boy I’d be in a lot of trouble. It’s one thing to make things convenient, but THAT takes it to the extreme.

Regardless, it may venture into our lives sooner than we think. There are still a mess of hoops to jump through, like getting all the carriers and manufacturers to agree on revenue sharing and stuff, BUT it still has a good possibility of showing up one day. According to a recent article over at SiliconValley.com,

“The technology exists, and people in Japan have been using it for the past five years to pay for everything from train tickets to groceries to candy in vending machines. And in small-scale trials around the world, including in Atlanta, New York and the Bay Area, nearly everyone has liked using this form of payment”

Brilliant! It’s no shock that the US is a little behind on this stuff (why is that?) but me thinks this may not be such a good thing. We’re pretty bad at saying no to quick & easy expenses as it is, so what’s this gonna do to the average American? There are still a lot of questions to be answered, but unfortunately for now we’ll just have to sit around and wait. In the meantime, I offer a list of pros and cons to nibble at:

PROS to using your cell phone as a credit card/check card:

Fast & easy payment – Just swipe, wave, or whatever and you’ve paid for it

You *always* have it on you! No need to do anything different, you’re already used to this.

The coolness factor – I give anyone mad props for being so tech savvy, I don’t care who you are ;)

CONS to using your cell phone as a credit card/check card:

Fast & easy payment – If it’s too easy, get prepared to spend more.

If you lose it, just another worry to have – According to the article though, you could possibly program it so that you need a code that only you know in order to access this payment option (sorta like a pin #)

If it’s not charged up, it’s worthless – so don’t count on this as your one and only form of payment, you’ll still have to keep other cards along with you. Plus, I doubt it would work for larger payments and the like anyways.

Regardless, this fancy-pants way of paying is still awesome to think about. It’s so 2012! I’m sure there’s a lot more research being done out there in google-land that I’m just too lazy to get right now, but I welcome you to drop a comment and let me know what you think. And if you’ve tried this before, you BETTER tell us how it was! Cuz if not, i’ll totally do something to you….yeah!….like, uh…..tell you you’re a stupid-face! So there.

—-ps: My thanks goes out to Mrs. Budgetsaresexy for bringing this to my attention, I owe you a super-fantastic backrub later tonight! (ow ow)

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I, J. Money, only claim the thoughts from my head. I am not a banker, CPA, money manager or anything else of that sort. Please seek a professional for any "real" advice. More info: privacy & disclosure page